Tennis / Lisa Dillman : Good News Offsets the Bad for Pasarell

Charlie Pasarell got over his disappointment about not being able to hold the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. men’s tennis tournament at Indian Wells until 1990 in a most unexpected way.

You see, Pasarell had been trying and trying--without success--to secure a major women’s tour event to complement his already successful men’s tournament at Grand Champions Resort in Indian Wells.

For how long?

“How about for almost five years,” he said, laughing.

Finally, after applying every year, Pasarell saw his efforts pay off with the news that, yes, women’s professional tennis was coming back to the desert . . . in the form of a $250,000 Virginia Slims primary event.

“Everything we’ve heard about the Indian Wells stadium is fantastic,” said Jane Brown, managing director of the Women’s International Professional Tennis Council.

“For a long time we’ve had an eye on it, to bringing women’s tennis out there. We’re delighted.”

Although several details still have to be worked out, Brown said the draw will be made up of at least 32 players, possibly as many as 56. On the men’s provisional calendar, Pasarell’s Newsweek Champions Cup is scheduled for March 13-19, and the women will play the week before, March 6-12.

If Brown and the women’s tennis tour are delighted, then Pasarell was practically giddy with the realization that he’ll be presenting two straight weeks of professional tennis in March.

“Needless to say, I’m so excited,” he said. “We basically had to go out and sell ourselves to the women’s tennis community. They recognized we have a major tennis facility and that we run a high quality event.”

While success was eluding him for so long on that front, Pasarell entered another arena last year and tried to obtain the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. team and individual championships for Indian Wells. Here, despite several twists and turns, Pasarell seemed to have reached his goal when in May the NCAA awarded the site to Grand Champions for the 1989 event.

Pasarell had been counting on using the courts at Stouffers, a resort across the street that was scheduled to be completed in February 1989. However, after Pasarell had gone to Athens, Ga., to meet with officials at this year’s NCAA tournament and to conduct research with his staff, and, after some additional meetings at Wimbledon on men’s tour business, he returned to the desert to find a letter from Stouffers.

It said sorry, Charlie, the project has been delayed and we won’t be open until September. That is, September of 1989.

Obviously, too late for the 1989 NCAA tournament.

Rather than ask some teams to play matches at other clubs in the area, Pasarell and the NCAA decided it would be best to hold next year’s event at Athens, and then move the tournament to Indian Wells in 1990, where, presumably, there would be enough courts.

“What happened sounds ridiculous and crazy, but it’s just a practicality,” Pasarell said. “We felt a lot of the coaches may object about having to go to another site. If I’m going to hold it, I want everybody to be happy. I don’t want people to come away from here with a negative impression. So, we just flip-flopped with Athens.”

Still, in a way, Pasarell felt as though he had failed, partially because he had been mentally ready to hold an additional event next year. But, of course, the news from the women’s tour changed all that. The addition of a women’s professional event more than made up for delaying the arrival of the NCAA tournament in Southern California.

Pepperdine Coach Allen Fox and former Redlands coach Jim Verdieck were among the seven recent inductees into the Collegiate Hall of Fame.

Fox, who played for UCLA, won the NCAA singles title in 1961 and the doubles championship in 1960. His best seasons as Pepperdine’s coach came in 1982 and 1986 with second-place finishes in the NCAA tournament. In May, Pepperdine senior Robby Weiss won the individual singles title.

Verdieck coached at Redlands for 38 years, 1946-1984, and his team won 15 national championships. His overall record is 921-281, which makes Verdieck the winningest small college coach.

Andre Agassi, all of 18 years old and ranked No. 6 in the world, will make his first appearance in Southern California since he pushed Boris Becker to three sets before losing in the semifinals of the Indian Wells tournament in March.

Agassi is scheduled to meet Ivan Lendl Aug. 4 in an exhibition at the Forum.

Tennis Notes

David Pate, who won the biggest title of his career with a straight-set victory over Stefan Edberg of Sweden in last year’s final of the Volvo/Los Angeles tournament, will return to UCLA’s L.A. Tennis Center to defend his championship. The $425,000 tournament--up $100,000 from 1987--is Sept. 17-25. Because the event conflicts with the Olympic Games, Edberg won’t be competing at UCLA nor will U.S. Olympic team member Brad Gilbert, a semifinalist in Los Angeles in 1987. . . . Upcoming: The San Gabriel Valley Moonlight tournament July 25-29 at Whittier Narrows Tennis Center.